William Shakespeare

I’ve usually thought of Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night as fairly light-hearted ‘entertainment’ but a recent visit to the Bridewell Theatre’s production by Adam Nichols brought a new slant to this.

If the BBC’s acerbic quiz master, Anne Robinson had been producer, I wouldn’t have been surprised. It was a real test of one’s concentrative powers. It took several scenes before I realised it really was the Shakespearean play.

As written by the Elizabethan playwright, the plot centres on mistaken identity. The leading character, Viola, is shipwrecked on the shores of Illyria during the opening scenes. She loses contact with her twin brother, Sebastian, whom she believes dead. Posing as a man, under the name Cesario, she enters the service of Duke Orsino.

Orsino is in love with Lady Olivia, whose brother has recently died, and decides to use Cesario to ply his cause. Olivia, believing Viola (Cesario) to be a man, falls in love with the messenger. And Viola, in turn, falls in love with the Duke. When Sebastian turns up, complete confusion ensues…

In the programme notes, Nichols refers to his production in terms of “brilliantly realised themes of eroticism, identity and death, exquisite (and often sad) poetry and irresistible comic momentum…”

I can imagine a Japanese friend saying with a little frown, “Is that so?” But she would enjoy the music.

In Twelfth Night – the musical, the play takes place on board a cruise ship in the twenties, mirroring a parallel world to the changing class structures of Shakespeare’s day. The ‘upper class’ is portrayed either as buffoons or two bob short of a whatsit.

Moreover, the so-called eroticism is merely smutty - in the genre of Blackpool pier - and both David Widdowson as Orsino and as Kathryn Rogers as Olivia are sleepy and wooden.

But there are miracles. Anna MacLeod plays a buxom Maria with brilliance and malicious wit, Howard Salinger’s marvellously irreverent Feste is a highlight of the production, and Faith Turner’s Viola is quite delightful.

It’s worth noting that In Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night, Feste’s role is particularly important because he is the ringleader of the merry company in misrule, above and below stairs.

Clown: Good Madonna, why mourn’st thou?”

Olivia: Good Fool, for my brother’s death.

Clown: I think his soul is in hell, Madonna.

Olivia: I know his soul is in heaven, fool.

Clown: The more fool, Madonna, to mourn for your brother’s soul, being in heaven.

Bridewell Theatre lurks in the shade of the journalists’ church, recognisable for miles by its wedding cake tower.

Bride Lane, Fleet Street, Inner London EC4Y 8EQ
Telephone 020 7226 3633
Nearest train station: Blackfriars

Here is a very helpful DVD for deaf people or anyone else who can be helped with sign language:
William Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night DVD: Performed in American Sign Language and English
Director: Peter Novak Rating

Get Twelfth Night in Sign Language

Reblog this post [with Zemanta]